Meal Plans

A friend of my sister's starting putting her meal plans for the week up on her blog a while back. I thought it was great but wondered how she had the time! Well, now that I have been eating gluten free for almost 2 months (more on that later), I have found that I have to be more prepared for dinners or I won't eat! I can't just run down to Wendy's if I don't feel like cooking. (Well, I can, but I prefer not to!) Anyways, I thought I would share my plans and recipes, and recipes I steal from others. Enjoy!

By the way, I dont' always follow the days to a "T". I usually end up feeling different and switching them around.

Also, I just realized this is an especially Italian heavy week. I think I watched too many episodes of Giada's show last week. I also have a couple weeks past that I will post when I get to it.

Monday-Portebello Parmesean (like Chicken Parmesean with Portebellos), grilled zucchini

For the grilled zucchini i slice the zucchini lengthwise, drizzle with EVOO and sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper. I just grill them for about 5 min each side till they are a little mushy but still have a firmness to them. Feel free to sprinkle these with parmesean too! Pretty good and surprisingly good as leftovers. I thought they would be chewy but they weren't at all.

Tuesday- Migas from this fabulous web site. Fair warning, you may become addicted to reading her stuff, photography, cooking, farm life, this is a girl after my own heart. By the way, if you don't like brinner (read: breakfast for dinner) you may not dig this meal. Its not pancakes or anything but its a brinner meal all the way. These turned out great!

Wednesday- dinner out with friends

Thursday- Rachel Ray's Roasted tomato and garlic pasta (made with rice penne of course) and homemade meatballs. The link has her steaks, and feel free to make those too, I just couldn't find the recipes seperate.

For my meatballs, I use:

Ground chuck or ground turkey (1 lb)

About a 1/4 cup breadcrumbs (gluten free)

1 egg

handfull of basil, oregano, parsley

1 clove chopped garlic

1/2 tsp red pepper

salt and pepper

Combine ingredients with your hands, yes I said your hands. I have yet to find a kitchen tool that does better for meat stirring. Roll into 1" balls, put on cookie sheet and bake for about 30 minutes in a 350 oven. Please be sure to check for doneness, I don't promise my cooking time is accurate. Now, mix with pasta or cover with tomato sauce. Yum!

Yum, yum, and yum. I thought this dish was delicious. I added my meatballs to the pasta and sauce. The flavor was very sophisticated! Not at all like a normal tomato sauce.

Friday- Chicken with Mustard Marscapone Marsala Sauce This just looks yummy, no two ways about it. Not sure what veggie we will have with it. Maybe just mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. Yeah that sounds good.

Mashed Potatoes:

4-5 idaho potatoes cut into 1" or less cubes (this makes them cook faster, oh and you can leave the skins on if you like dirty mashed potatoes)

Sour Cream

Butter

Tony Cachere's Cajun seasoning

S & P

Cook potatoes in boiling salted water. Drain and add about 4 tablespoons of butter and 3/4 cup of sour cream. Again, I never measure this stuff so start small and add. Add in seasonings and mash to your hearts content. Sometimes I put cut up scallions and roasted garlic but I figure this chicken has too much flavor for that.

Branching Out

I have been doing photography on the side very sporatically for the last 3 or so years. I love photography....always have, even since the days of my polaroid and the funky disposable underwater cameras that I would take on vacation.

I would like to think I have progressed a little since those days.....:) With a lot of help from a good friend, I have finally gotten a website up for developing this little side business.

www.erinjacksonphoto.com

Its really just a blog right now, but you can view galleries of work and keep up with the shoots I am doing.

Right now is a great time for all sorts of pictures but especially senior portraits. If you know anyone needing them please feel free to pass my name on! Thanks for checking it out!

Baby Blues!

I photographed one of my friends and her beautiful family last night. Unfortunately I am at work this morning so I can't work on the edits yet, or so I thought. Our server is down so I couldn't resist at least posting one of the photos. Have you ever seen eyes that look like the ocean? Well here you go! (If you want to see them even closer up click on the picture!)

Greek Wings

A couple more recipes!!

This first one is actually my friend Andrea's. I work with her and she cooks up some fabulous stuff!

1 bag frozen chicken wings

EVOO

Fresh Basil and Oregano

Garlic

Lemons

I made 24 wings at a time so modify however you want.

Place frozen wings in large bowl. Coat with olive oil. Chop up herbs and garlic and coat wings with those. Squeeze about 1 lemon worth of juice and turn to coat. I also sprinkled with salt and pepper. Place on half sheet pan or cookie sheet with sides.Cook in 350 degree oven for about an hour. Heat up grill and finish wings on grill. I like them crispy which is what the grill does for you. Squeeze another lemon worth of juice on them after you take them off the grill. I also used all the stuff in the bottom of my cookie sheet to pour over them.

Dipping Sauce:

1 container of sour cream

Crumbled Feta

herbs from before

Combine all ingredients. Dip wings. Eat!

Fries:

I bought frozen french fries and cooked them to the bags instructions and added herbs and Lawry's seasoning salt. They were good in the dip too! Now that I think of it some shredded cucumber would make that dip super good! It would be somewhat like Tsatziki.

I couldn't resist....I'm impatient

I am completely excited about these photos. These two cuties got hitched last Friday. It was so beautiful and intimate with just a few guests.....and talk about photogenic. You can really see the love between these two. Enjoy!

Oh and PS. I am hoping to have http://www.erinjacksonphoto.com/ up and running this weekend but we will see. If you look at it now you will be dissapointed. Just wait, haha, look who's talking!

Panegyri!

MMMM! So I am way behind in blogging but trying to catch up on this day off. Last Saturday we went with our friends Andy, Marie, John, and Amanda to Panegyri!

"Panegyri!"
"Panegyri?"
"Panegyri!"
"Idiot!"
"Did you call me an idiot?"
"No, I said, Dijieatyet?"

Hehe, that was a bit of the radio commerical they kept running for Panegyri, or Greek Fest.

So we went and had to get some gyros. Yes, this one has a bite taken out of it. I have been doing the gluten free thing for about 3 weeks and I went to find a fork and came back and opened what I thought was my untouched gyro only to find a gnawed off end! I almost went back to the booth! Until Jeremy and everyone else started cracking up. He took a bite and rewrapped it! Funny guy. I wasn't too worried though since all I was eating was the fillings.


It was really hot....notice my greasy hair! Yuck.

The bus back to the parking lot was a little crowded so Marie and Amanda got a little friendly!



Greek Fest was fun!